


Paramour

by FenHarelMaGhilana (WhitethornWolf)



Series: Fortune Favour Me [24]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 17:18:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1718402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhitethornWolf/pseuds/FenHarelMaGhilana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He kissed her sweetly, slowly, pulling her forward until she had to wriggle closer. Each kiss started out tentative and gentle, and that was what she loved about him — he never took more than she was willing to freely give, and each kiss began and ended exactly when she wanted it to.</p><p>The trouble was, she never wanted to stop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paramour

Walking around Castle Redcliffe at midnight was the ideal time to hope fervent prayers to the Maker actually worked.

Eilin stepped as lightly as she could with bare feet — bare,  _freezing_  feet — and tried not to question her own decision to leave the warmth of her room for Alistair’s. Or the decision to even crawl out of bed at all. Maybe if she wrapped herself in blankets and shut her eyes tight, sleep would come to her eventually.

 

It hadn’t worked all the other times she’d tried, but maybe persistence would pay off.

 

Alistair’s room was not far down the hall from hers, and his door handle didn’t even creak when she turned it as slowly and carefully as she could. Luckily for her, the hinges didn’t make so much as a squeak when she pushed the door open and slipped inside.

 

Alistair was on his back in the bed, the sheets tangled around his legs. He rolled on his side and raised himself up on one elbow when she shut the door behind her.

“Eilin?” he murmured sleepily. “Is everything alright?”

 

How ridiculous it was to feel like a little girl, and yet Eilin suddenly felt awkward in her too-short nightgown and bare feet.

“I can’t sleep,” she mumbled.

 

“What?” Alistair propped himself on one elbow. “Are you mad? It’s freezing. Come to bed.”

 

“If you’re offering.” Eilin crawled onto the bed, pulling the blanket over her knees. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

 

“I wasn’t really asleep,” Alistair said. He rolled on his side and rested his head on his arm. “What was it about?”

 

“The usual.” Eilin burrowed into the blankets and rolled on her side, mirroring his position. “Darkspawn. My family. This time it was the Deep Roads.”

 

“Again?”

 

She nodded. “I was in such blackness I even couldn’t see my own hands. It was like I was suffocating. Drowning in darkness, with that smell of dry rot and lichen, and that — that infernal clicking. Giant spiders in the abandoned thaigs. The blasted things would follow us for miles.”

 

Her tone was light, but Alistair didn’t laugh. He tucked a wayward curl behind her ear and said, “Something really shook you up in there, didn’t it? The Deep Roads, I mean. You’ve been having nightmares for weeks. Talking in your sleep.”

 

“Have I?” she said wearily. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

 

“You can talk about it, if you want. I’m willing to lend an ear. Maybe even two.”

That was Alistair for you, sweetness even after disturbing his rest. Eilin leaned forward and kissed him, her lips scraping against the stubble dusting his chin. Then she began to talk.

 

She started at a week after they’d left Orzammar. There’d been nothing noteworthy before that, not unless you counted Oghren’s half-drunken grumbles and the few stray darkspawn they’d dispatched along the way.

Her memories were still fresh — she could almost smell the darkspawn corruption and hear their constant hiss, could almost see Morrigan’s witch light illuminate the crumbling old ruins.

And she could remember Laryn and Hespith, and what Branka had done. Those particular memories were seared into her mind, and they made her voice shake while she recounted what they’d seen. If Alistair noticed, he said nothing.

 

“I never wondered where darkspawn really came from,” he said eventually. In the dim light he looked pale, his eyes glinting as he frowned. “I could’ve withstood not knowing, though. Really.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“For what, telling me what I asked you in the first place?” Alistair said. “You should have let me go instead. Or at least, go with you.”

 

They’d been over this argument weeks ago, but it wasn’t worth responding — Alistair could be as stubborn as she was, if he had his mind set.

“Just promise me you won’t ever let that happen to me,” she said instead.

 

“It won’t!” Alistair said, so fiercely she started. “You have my word.”

 

“Would you kill me, if it came to it?”

 

“Yes. I wouldn’t relish the thought, but if I had to, you know I would. You trust me, don’t you?”

 

“With my life, or what’s left of it,” Eilin said, and kissed him again.

 

She’d meant for her kiss to be nothing more than simple affection, but she’d almost forgotten what it was like to kiss him without interruption.

He kissed her sweetly, slowly, pulling her forward until she had to wriggle closer. Each kiss started out tentative and gentle, and that was what she loved about him — he never took more than she was willing to freely give, and each kiss began and ended exactly when she wanted it to.

The trouble was, she never wanted to stop.

 

One kiss became another, and another. Her hair hung down over her face, over her shoulders and caught under her arm as she scooted even closer, slinging one leg over his hip. Their bodies pressed together, separated by thin fabric and half a blanket.

He was naked already. She felt every inch of him even though the fabric of her nightgown; lean muscle against her torso, one leg pressing against the back of her thigh. Her breasts pressed into his chest, uncomfortably so.

 

“I didn’t exactly come here for this,” she said into his neck.

 

Alistair’s quiet chuckle reverberated through the top of her head. “I’m hardly complaining.”

 

“Oh, I know,” Eilin said smugly, and ground her hips against him, just to hear his breath catch. “I know.”

 

It was nearly eight weeks since their last night in Orzammar. Eight weeks since they’d been alone without a thin tent flap between them and the rest of their party. Eight weeks since naked skin and sweat and barely stifled whimpers. Eight weeks since raw pleasure drawn from her with trembling fingers, of hands in her hair.

 

She had to wonder how she’d lasted this long.

 

Alistair was always warm, and when they lay together his skin flushed from head to toe. She loved that; loved everything about him from the sweat that made his skin glisten to the lovely sounds he made when she bit down on his earlobe and kissed a path down his chest. His gasps and stifled groans made her stomach flutter wildly, and for a split second she almost resented the others’ proximity. She wanted to leave him breathless and incoherent — but before that, she wanted him to shout, and she didn’t care who heard.

 

It wasn’t any easier for her. Alistair was a quick learner, and he knew her body better than anyone. He knew how to touch her, and touch her he did — with his hands stroking her shoulder and cupping her breasts, and his mouth pressing kisses on her belly. Eilin remembered him as shy and a little clumsy last time — this time she had trouble stifling her gasps.

Alistair’s strength was all in his arms and his hands. Eilin felt it when he pressed her into the blankets, when his fingers encircled her wrist.

But his strength was for his blade and his shield, and not for her. He could be soft, and so could she — though for all the events of the past eight months, it was a wonder she was capable of warmth and gentleness. She saved what little she had for him. Always for him.

 

It didn’t last long. They were tired and pent up and it was an effort to slow down in the first place. Eilin slid down onto him, toes curling, and tugged his hand between her thighs. His other hand was everywhere; clutching at her thigh, her breast, squeezing her hip and tangling in her hair.

He said something that might have been her name, the words tumbling out between gasps, and bucked against her.

 

It wasn’t a shout, but it was enough. Her climax crashed over her, hard enough to make her dizzy, and she rode it out until she had no more breath left.

 

                                                           

* * *

 

 

“That was just what I needed,” Eilin said when they’d caught their breath, lying side by side with the covers thrown back. “I wonder if anyone heard us.”

 

“I’m sure a guard would have come to investigate,” Alistair said lazily, and yawned. “And probably would have regretted it.” He began to sit up as she rolled over to retrieve her nightgown. “Are you going?”

 

“Do you want me to?”

 

“Of course not.”

 

“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” Eilin said, as she folded the garment. “Arl Eamon will probably find out I’ve been bunking in your room anyway. I’m sure we’re not very subtle.”

 

“Well, I thought about that,” Alistair said, “but it doesn’t really matter now, does it? We’re heading to Denerim the day after tomorrow, and then the Landsmeet will decide what’s to become of us. If I’m to be king, well…I can do what I want, can’t I?”

 

Eilin shrugged. The impending Landsmeet was not her favourite topic right now — she knew that was juvenile, not to mention selfish. “Did I mention my first rule is ‘No politics in bed’?”

 

He ignored that. “Well, king or no king, I’ll find a way to make it work. I’m not letting you get away that easily.”

 

“As if you could get rid of me,” Eilin said, and put an arm around him. “I don’t think you have to worry about that.”

 

Alistair was still smiling when he finally fell asleep.


End file.
